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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27042931">True things that are not, but might be</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysSpeaksHerMind/pseuds/AlwaysSpeaksHerMind'>AlwaysSpeaksHerMind</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Children's Literature, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gap Filler, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Writing Exercise, underrated ships</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:01:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,130</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27042931</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysSpeaksHerMind/pseuds/AlwaysSpeaksHerMind</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A rambling collection of random tales that feature some of my favorite L.M. Montgomery characters/background relationships.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley, James Matthew "Jem" Blythe/Faith Meredith</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Glimpsing the Bend</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>At the minister’s wedding, Jem Blythe finds himself beginning to pay a little more attention to Faith Meredith.<br/>[Set between Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside.]</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The manse wedding-day was, as Miss Cornelia herself was wont to say afterward, with an air of deep satisfaction, <em>perfect. </em>To be sure, the morning dawned ugly, gray, and damp as a marsh toad, but by noon the weather had cleared right up and the sun shone as bright and fiercely as anyone could desire. Thick, feathery clouds drifted overhead like an armada of fairy sloops bound for home; every winged creature for what seemed to be miles appeared bent on serenading the bride and groom everywhere they went, and best of all, the mangy cur that somehow found its way into the fourth pew and set up a cheerful howl that drowned out the first strains of Mendelsson was removed amid the roaring, congenial mirth of Norman Douglas with far less difficulty than even the most optimistic dared hope. John Meredith’s face, for the first time in Glen memory, was a study in carefree rapture that bespoke the miracle wrought by love, and his bride’s countenance was scarcely less glowing. Already blessed with that rare strain of youthful, golden beauty that defies the passage of time, Rosemary appeared to have shed years in her happiness, and more than one set of grim eyes winked away a tear as Miss West vowed to become Mrs. Meredith.</p>
<p>The gown and veil were, as Susan whispered to Anne in satisfied tones across Shirley’s head as the frothy parade of lace glided its way down the aisle, all that one could dream of, and the voile dresses of the bride’s attendants were scarcely less beautiful—robin’s-egg blue for Faith, and soft violet for shy little Una. For of course, Rosemary had insisted that her prospective step-daughters be part of the proceedings, and of course Faith and Una were delighted to accept—though Una rather quailed beneath the sea of eyes that seemed fixed upon her, and Faith <em>would </em>persist in sporting a grin too wide and cavalier for the liking of most Glen gossips.</p>
<p>All in all, it was a wondrous day, and with the exception of the blissfully happy couples, none sensed the elusive magic of it more keenly than the regular denizens of Rainbow Valley. Jem in particular, freshly returned from the first few months’ sojourn at Queen’s, found there was a certain undercurrent of excitement that even the most prosaic of guests could not help but feel—and the longer the event stretched on, the surer he became that this mysterious impression was somehow due to the most malapropos bride’s attendant in recollected Glen history.</p>
<p>By the time the evening stars began to poke like glittering jewels through the cracks of the deepening twilight, the merriment had reached heights that might have been deemed indecorous by anyone unfortunate enough not to be in attendance, and Faith Meredith had, through no deliberate attempt of her own, managed to draw attention to herself no fewer than six times, if one were keeping track.</p>
<p>And with only mild alarm, Jem Blythe occasioned to discover that he <em>was </em>keeping track.</p>
<p>As of late, he had begun to think of her more. To compare her—perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not—to the fine young ladies of Charlottetown, with their piled-up hair and rose-lipped smiles and names he subsequently forgot almost as swiftly as he learnt them because so very many of them tended toward simpering blushes when speaking that it was impossible to prevent their all blurring together in his mind. Not one of those elegant beauties laughed like laughter was the only treasure worth having in life, or set entire Ladies’ Aids into conniption fits by forgetting to wear hats, and he felt quite sure they had never dreamed of riding pigs, turning up to church without stockings, defending a gossiped-about father in front of the whole congregation, or dancing on tombstones.</p>
<p>Moreover, he reflected as his eyes landed upon the pronounced blue hair-bow his eyes had been following for some time now as it bobbed briskly in and out of the crowd, not one of those sophisticated young belles was in possession of glossy, golden-brown curls and dimples that could have made the soberest philosopher long to become a court jester. Mrs. Elliott had once remarked—and Susan, for a rarity, concurred—that if Faith weren’t such an irrepressible young imp, she would have every boy in the Glen at her beck and call and, judging by the number of heads tracking her movements devotedly as sunflowers following the sun, Jem found he agreed.</p>
<p>Even so, it was quite possible the dear old ladies of the Glen were slightly mistaken—Faith <em>was</em> an engaging mischief by nature, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men would never be able to change that, but it was less the fault of her odd scrapes and more her possession of a clever tongue and valiant temper that kept even the most intrigued swains at a respectful distance. As of yet, no Glen boy had been willing to cast himself fully into the breach, but Jem could not help sticking a little on that first and fateful qualifier: <em>yet. </em>No Glen boy had been that brave <em>yet.</em></p>
<p>It was, he thought, a funny thing.</p>
<p>“Jem! Where are you going?” Rilla inquired in a tone of great injury as he stood suddenly from his chair beside her. “I wath <em>jutht</em> going to tell you about my new dreth. Mummy made a green one out of—”</p>
<p>“Some other time, Roly-poly, all right?” he told her as kindly as he could considering his quarry had now disappeared and the looming prospect of a dress discussion made the sensation of being locked in an iron cage quite strong. Of all the Ingleside demoiselles, Rilla alone possessed the deepest, most consuming passion for clothes, and though Jem deemed it something of an elder brother’s unpleasant duty to every now and then lend an ear to the joys and struggles of his youngest sibling’s life, some things could not be endured under even the best of circumstances. “Why don’t you go dig up Shirley and see if you two can raid the sweets table before Susan remembers to guard it?”</p>
<p>Rilla, brightening at once, hopped neatly down and sped off into the crowd, sartorial woes and triumphs forgotten with the prospect of forbidden desserts looming on the horizon. Satisfied with the neatness of his maneuver, Jem stood about for a moment or two to make certain she didn’t reappear, then performed a quick examination of the premises in order to determine whereby Faith had vanished. No likely exit appeared at first glance; every door was guarded by at least one chattering throng of enthusiastic parishioners, and Jem divined with sympathetic instinct that no one would have attempted escape via so obvious a route.</p>
<p>On second glance, however, his sharp gaze espied the brief flutter of a nearby curtain, and it was the work of a moment to lift the half-open window and slip out into the gathering dusk. He presumed, naturally, that he would find her hobnobbing about the Methodist graveyard, but true to form, Faith proved less predictable than expected. Halfway round the manse, a strange noise from above distracted him, and he glanced up just in time to catch sight of a bulky shape crouched gargoyle-like near the eaves.</p>
<p>“Faith?” he called, squinting up into the shadows. “That you?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” a voice hissed back, accompanied by the faraway scuttling sound of shingles being scraped loose. “Did Una send you? Am I needed inside?”</p>
<p>“No. Just wanted to see where you wandered off to,” he returned, laughing despite a nagging suspicion that he ought to scold her for climbing so high in shoes that, as Jerry had aptly if inelegantly expressed it earlier, were slippery as a newborn eel. “And get away from all the talking for a little while. What on earth are you doing up there?”</p>
<p>“Isn’t it obvious? Hiding,” came the reply, followed quickly by the rapid descent of a rickety old ladder. “If you want to join me, be quick about it, for mercy’s sake. Bertie Shakespeare Drew is somewhere about, and I don’t want him finding his way up here.”</p>
<p>Eyeing the weather-beaten rungs dubiously, Jem placed a careful toe on the first to test its strength. But to his astonishment the wood held firm, and he ascended with encouraging rapidity, even relaxing enough to chuckle when she ordered him to ‘retract the drawbridge if you please’ the second his foot lifted off it.</p>
<p>“Anything else, de Bracy?” he inquired teasingly, craning his neck to peer down into the shadows before dropping down beside her on the rough shingles.</p>
<p>“Not a thing, Bois-Guilbert.”</p>
<p>Glancing over at her, it was impossible to help smiling. With a charmingly casual disregard for all accepted forms of etiquette and proper posture, Faith lolled back on her elbows, the shiny patent-leather toes of her boots squeaking out a not-unpleasant rhythm as she absentmindedly tapped them together. By all appearances she was enjoying herself immensely, yet Jem could not help but suspect that some other reason lay behind her sudden bolt into the shadow world outdoors.</p>
<p>“Something wrong?” he said casually.</p>
<p>“No,” said Faith promptly, though the word had a hurried note of uncertainty about it. “That is, not <em>wrong, </em>exactly, just…not right, either.”</p>
<p>Jem nodded as though he found this less confusing than it sounded. Then, in a burst of either foresight or politeness, he also stopped her from lying back so that he could first spread his jacket out beneath her to shield at least some of her new dress from the rough slates. She was always forgetting things like that, he’d noticed, and it always tickled him because he could just imagine what Susan would say to any Ingleside child who dared treat best clothes like play clothes. And all the while she settled herself, arms tucked behind her head and feet clacking together again, he held his tongue. He felt reasonably certain he wouldn’t have long to wait for an explanation—Faith seldom refused to elaborate after dropping hints the way Nan and Rilla and even Di so often did, because harboring concerns and then getting miffed with other people when they didn’t instantly sniff them out just wasn’t her way.</p>
<p>Still, it came as a welcome relief when Faith heaved the sigh he knew heralded whatever confession she was about to make. He’d never been especially keen on the notion of constant chatter, but oddly enough, her rare silences often spurred the desire to talk up a storm.</p>
<p>“It’s that I’m so happy,” she announced at last, her voice as startlingly meditative as he’d ever heard it. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been this happy, and I’m starting to wonder if I really ought to be.”</p>
<p>“Why?” asked Jem with some blandness, watching out of the corner of his eye as she gravely wound a stray curl around the tip of one finger and began poking at the tip of her chin.</p>
<p>“Because…” She pursed her lips for moment, then shot him a stern look. “Don’t tell anyone I said this, but Una had a very hard time when we lost our mother. We all did, of course, but—Una and Father especially. They <em>feel </em>things more, you know?”</p>
<p>He nodded again, instinctually preserving a discreet silence. The Merediths spoke so rarely of their mother that the only things he could have said for certain that he knew about her was her name, that she’d been beautiful and wonderful and endlessly understanding, and that Carl had her eyes. Now that he came to think of it, however, he realized how young they all must’ve been—Carl had once admitted his memories of her were very hazy, and Faith herself couldn’t have been much older than Rilla.     </p>
<p>“Una cried buckets,” Faith went on, still in that slow, speculative tone so unlike her usual playful one. “At night, mostly, but sometimes during the day. She thinks nobody but she knows about it, but we share a room. It’s not as though I could help overhearing. She didn’t like the idea of a stepmother at first—though Mary Vance had a lot to do with <em>that</em>—and even once she knew we were getting the best possible stepmother, she had to get used to the idea. She would stare out of windows, hum some of the old songs Mother taught us, and once I even caught her looking at these dresses that used to belong to Mother. I didn’t even know we <em>had </em>those, and there Una was <em>talking </em>to them.”</p>
<p>“Yes, but what’s all this got to do with you?” Jem wanted to know, frowning as he tried to connect what seemed irreconcilable facts to him. “You’re not the crying or talking to dresses sort, Faith.”</p>
<p>Faith sighed again. “I know, but it bothers me all the same. When I found out, I didn’t even think to worry about Mother. It’s not as if I’ve forgotten her, I mean, I could never. I <em>would </em>never, I—I was just so glad Father was happy…and I’m still just glad Father’s happy! Only now I’m glad for myself, too, and for Jerry, and Carl, and Una, and it feels as if there’s no room in me for unhappiness about Mother and that maybe that’s wrong. Do you think it is?”</p>
<p>Chewing a lip thoughtfully, Jem weighed the question in his mind for a bit before finally shaking his head. “No, I don’t think so.”</p>
<p>“Neither do I, but I can’t understand a bit why,” she said flatly, making him chuckle. “The more I think about it, the more muddled-up it seems to get in my brain. I didn’t want to bother Father or Miss—I mean Rosemary with things like that today, and I don’t think it’s much use asking anyone except maybe your mother what they think. She’s the only one I can be sure won’t laugh or tell me how wicked I’m being.”</p>
<p>Personally, Jem agreed. Mother was the most sympathetic listener in all the world, but it could not be denied that she was decidedly unavailable at the moment. Particularly if, as he somewhat guiltily suspected, Rilla had gotten a bit carried away with his dessert suggestion. Even now, she might be rushing to corral the smallest Blythes.</p>
<p>“Well,” he said cautiously after giving it some more reflection. “For what it’s worth, my mother’s always telling us life is a road that winds on whether we want it to or not. Sometimes you lose your way, sometimes grass grows over the part you’ve already walked on, and a lot of the time you can’t see more than five lengths in front of you. Maybe you being happy now isn’t you forgetting your mother, Faith, or ignoring her memory or anything like that. Maybe it’s just you choosing to look forward instead of back.”</p>
<p>Faith looked enormously relieved, though the glance she cast at him bore with it a suspicious tinge. “You know, you’re getting awfully wise for someone who’s spent less than a month in Charlottetown, Jem Blythe.”</p>
<p>Pleased to see her mood lightening, he chuckled. “What can I say? Living on your own changes you.”</p>
<p>“I should hope not,” she stated decidedly. “That’s the last thing we need—you, of all people, <em>changing</em>.”</p>
<p>“What?” he demanded, turning on his elbow to see her better, his curiosity at once piqued. “What’s wrong with me changing? Why am I not allowed?”</p>
<p>“Because.” Smile cheeky, she folded her hands neatly over her stomach. “You’re the only one of us who can be depended on to talk sense and call fair play at all times. We ought all to have someone we can set our clocks by.”</p>
<p>In spite of what felt a great deal like a secondhand blow to his pride, Jem laughed. “You make me sound like an old man who waves his cane and shouts about politics and rheumatism.”</p>
<p>“Not <em>old,</em>” Faith assured him with an air of charming complacency. “Just…aged. And stuffy. I expect you’ll be lecturing us all on morals come Christmas.”</p>
<p>“Like fun I will,” Jem grumbled, shuddering at the very idea. “After these last couple weeks, I’ve made up my mind—any lectures <em>I </em>give must be at least a little interesting, and people can walk right straight out of them if they want.”</p>
<p>“Is it really so bad at Queens?” Faith inquired with sympathetic interest, propping herself up on one elbow again. “Di told us you were enjoying it.”</p>
<p>“Oh—I am.” A little sheepishly, Jem waved aside his own grievance. “I’m learning a lot, and not having to sneak into pantries whenever I feel like a midnight snack is great. I only meant I get tired of listening to old windbags drone on and on. Why, the professor of history makes any battle you can name sound about as exciting as a knitting party, and the professor of English puts your name in the parsing if he calls on you and you don’t have any thoughts on the passage.”</p>
<p>Faith’s giggle bubbled forth. “And how many times has <em>your</em> name found its way into the parsing?”</p>
<p>Narrowing his eyes at her (really, seven times wasn’t all <em>that </em>much considering how poor Shaw, a stringy youth from out west with a habit of blushing scarlet and forgetting his own name when put on the spot, had been written up nineteen times already) Jem was stopped from defending himself when a wispy voice from somewhere down below was heard calling Faith’s name.</p>
<p>“That’ll be Una,” said Faith somewhat resignedly, feet scraping as she sat up and peered far over the edge with a carelessness that would have frightened more than a few years off the bride and bridegroom had they been near enough to witness it. “She threatened to drag me in for the big sendoff, and I guess it must be getting close to that now.”</p>
<p>Jem nodded his agreement, helping her slide the ladder back in place before beginning a quick descent. Beneath his feet, the rustic wood groaned and complained with every step, and he called up a warning as he reached the ground—a warning that proved to be rather superfluous, as Faith’s feet appeared swiftly afterward and she avoided the last two rungs by hopping down with all the nimble grace of a young squirrel.</p>
<p>“See there?” she announced, dusting her hands off with a businesslike air. “Already, you’re being gobbled up by starchiness. First it’s fussing over others’ safety, next it’s complaining about the weather and crop prices and how the country’s going to the dogs.”</p>
<p>“Says who?” Jem returned, trying to scowl as he retrieved his jacket from where she had it draped over one shoulder and succeeding only in getting up a mild squint. “The way I figure it, I’ve got at <em>least </em>ten years before I have to worry about dull-as-sticks things like the weather.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know.” Faith wore her teasing smile again, the one that would have seemed perfectly angelic on anyone besides her. “You did growl an awful lot when it looked as if it would rain the day of the shore race.”</p>
<p>Jem scoffed, annoyance flaring all over again at the remembrance of that excruciating wait. “That was different.”</p>
<p>“And of course,” his companion went on with only a heavier-than-usual twinkle in her eye as they made their way back toward the bright lights, “the twins and Walter did mention one evening that you were in a terrible mood because it had been clear as a bell the whole time you were studying, and foggy the moment you took a break.”</p>
<p>Jem harrumphed since honesty permitted no avenue but a wordless one there. But it was impossible to appear—let alone feel—miffed on a night full of no books, countless stars, and the measureless possibilities that seemed borne on every breath of wind. Casting a quick, moderately surreptitious glance toward his spirited company as he shrugged back into his jacket, a smile grew. The dainty blue bow, so neat and tidy at the beginning of the day, now stood at lopsided attention like the tail of an unfortunate peacock, and on impulse, he reached out and tugged the whole furbelowed contrivance straight out of her hair. </p>
<p>“There,” he said in response to the indignant yelp that followed, tucking the silky strip of blue into his coat pocket with exaggerated pompousness. “Since I’m so old and responsible now, I think I’ll just hold onto that for you so you won’t lose it before we get back inside. That’s what Mother and Susan always do with Rilla.”</p>
<p>“With <em>Rilla?</em>” Faith was indignant, making first one, then two scattered attempts to snatch back her stolen property before she stopped and extended a hand, palm up. “All right, Jem Blythe. You’ve had your little joke, now give it back before I tell your mother on you.”</p>
<p>It was too perfect. With the party spilling over onto the lawn, the muted strains of music lilting through the night like the distant echoes of fairyland, and Faith Meredith glaring up at him with a ferociousness her twinkling eyes and merry voice belied, Jem found he could do nothing besides laugh.</p>
<p>“Only if you take back everything you said about me growing stuffy,” he countered, extracting the stiff scrap of silk from his pocket and dangling it teasingly just beyond her reach. “Go on, now. You want your ribbon, start retracting.”</p>
<p>“Oh, fine.” Painting on a prunes and prisms smile very like the one Mrs. Elder Clow donned whenever propriety forbade her voicing the copious amounts of disapproval she wished to convey, Faith ceased the grabbing dives and held out both hands in an attitude of false supplication. “I take everything back, Master Blythe. You’re younger than ever since you went off to Charlottetown, and we would all do well to follow your example of perfect childishness.”</p>
<p>“Thank you.” Feigning ignorance to the thinly-veiled sarcasm, he deposited the half-formed little bow into her waiting palm with an unnecessarily grand flourish and bestowed a wink upon its owner. “Your hero worship is accepted with gratitude, Miss Meredith.”</p>
<p>“Hero worship?” Eyes dancing in that inexplicably bewitching fashion known only to sprites and those born under a merry star, Faith somehow contrived to pull an innocent face while her deft fingers went to work re-fastening the little accessory into her hair. “<em>Are</em> there any heroes about? I only seem to see and hear conceited blowhards.”</p>
<p>Jem tried his best to assume an attitude of deep injury at the return volley, but the effect got slightly mixed up with a smile, and it was beyond his power to resist joining his companion in her jolly peal of laughter.</p>
<p>“And to think I was going to offer you a pity dance,” he grumbled in mock disgust. “Catch me making plans like that ever again.”</p>
<p>Rather to his astonishment, this announcement was met with neither laugh nor chuckle. If anything, Faith’s posture seemed to droop at the jest.</p>
<p>“What?” queried Jem, maintaining his laughter in order to cover up the fleeting twinge of anxiousness that arose within him at the failure of his small joke. He had always deemed Faith’s sense of humor first-rate, but perhaps she had a limit unbeknownst to him. Had he unwittingly made a blunder and bruised her feelings?</p>
<p>But no, she was shaking her head, and the expression she now wore trumpeted frustration more than hurt.</p>
<p>“You needn’t trouble yourself on my account,” she said glumly. “I didn’t expect to dance anyway.”</p>
<p>“Faith, no,” he hastened to assure her, appalled by the notion that she might be taking him seriously. “I was only in fun. You know I’d never dance with anyone purely out of pity.” Least of all her, but it was perhaps asking a bit too much of youthful sagacity for tongue to proclaim what heart and head had of yet only begun to guess at. “I didn’t mean it that way.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I know. I didn’t think that at all.” She sent a brief, glimmering smile his way before heaving a loud sigh. “I just meant I <em>can’t </em>dance.”</p>
<p>Another mystery, Jem thought, frowning. He’d seen her dance many a time in Rainbow Valley; once, she and Mary Vance had had a terribly lengthy polka competition he and Di had been obliged to forcibly declare a draw due to darkness falling and the fact that neither contestant was inclined to concede defeat. Where on earth did this <em>can’t </em>business stem from?</p>
<p>“Old cats,” Faith informed him, no doubt reading the question on his face. “Minister’s daughters aren’t supposed to dance, so Mrs. Alec Davis says.”</p>
<p>An incredulous snort escaped him. “Mrs. Alec Davis? You never care what Mrs. Alec Davis has to say!”</p>
<p>“No,” admitted Faith reluctantly, “but most of the Glen agrees with her on this matter, and Una minds that dreadfully. Plus, it hurts Father to have people talk about me. If I could dance and be <em>sure </em>it wouldn’t make talk I would, but—as I can’t, I suppose I’ll just have to make up my mind to be a wallflower for the rest of my life and like it.”</p>
<p>A <em>wallflower</em>?</p>
<p>Privately, Jem thought this woeful pronouncement very unlikely. The bareheaded nymph beside him, with her crimson cheeks and saucy tongue and habit of behaving as though the world were a cache of fun just waiting to be discovered and undone, could never achieve anything remotely resembling wallflower status. She was, to put it quite simply, too vivid a personality. Other girls might go overlooked from time to time, like moss on the shady underbelly of a stone, but not she. No, in the garden of life, Faith Meredith with her shining eyes and silvery laughter was as a scarlet poppy that has somehow sprung up in a bed intended to house modest, staid crocuses. Brilliant, glowing, and possessed of a matchless zeal for life in all its vagaries, her very existence set her apart from the rest of the pleasant but unremarkable flowers, and it seemed absurdly farfetched to entertain for even one second the notion that she might ever learn to thrive in the background.   </p>
<p>And yet—standing as inadvertent witness to her rather unorthodox dolor, a wave of compassion washed over him. It <em>wasn’t</em> very likely that she’d get many opportunities to dance away from the wagging tongues that pervaded the Glen, and Faith dearly loved to dance. The prospect of sitting out everything for the foreseeable future had to be a cheerless one.</p>
<p>“How about this, Faith,” he proposed suddenly, catching the edge of one billowy sleeve to halt her and steering her slightly off the path and into the protective shadows cast by the spire. “From now on, whenever we two go anywhere you can’t dance for fear of what old cats in the Glen’ll say, I promise I’ll come find you and take you someplace so’s we can dance without anyone seeing. Deal?”</p>
<p>“Deal.”</p>
<p>And as Faith accepted the proffered hand, dimples flashing, Jem was seized with another wave of inspiration. Slyly maintaining his grip on the dainty hand in his once the shake ended, he lifted his eyebrows significantly.</p>
<p>“Ahem,” he said, clearing his throat and aiming a grin (rather cocky, it must be admitted) at her, “since there’s no time like the present…shall we?”</p>
<p>She giggled, nodding, and he noted with shameless gratification as a stray beam of moonlight fell across her face that her cheeks had taken on the barest tinge of rosy pink. “As long as we stay out of sight…why not?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>[}{][}{][}{][}{][}{]</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What do you make of that budding saga, Anne-girl?”</p>
<p>Preparing herself for anything, from the sight of Norman Douglas dancing a hornpipe opposite his resigned new sister-in-law to Rilla gravely inspecting the wedding cake by means of a chubby forefinger swiping down the cloud of frosting, Anne turned from her inspection of the merrymaking assemblage to discover she hadn’t the faintest idea on <em>what </em>she was being asked to offer her opinion.</p>
<p>“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific,” she murmured, tamping down the wild impulse to laugh as she caught sight of Jessie Drew trying desperately to capture the attention of the same curmudgeonly bachelor as her cousin Emmeline while both pretended a hearty disinterest in him to one another. “The slightest glance convinces me there are more Glen narratives just beginning to unfurl around us than I could hope to name in a year.”</p>
<p>“True enough,” Gilbert agreed, subtly inclining his head toward a corner at the far end of the room where their missing offspring sat conversing as though he’d been there always. “But I’m afraid the one I mean lies over yonder. Hark ye at our aspiring schoolmaster.”</p>
<p>“Jem?” she said, laughing a little to disguise the mistiness she couldn’t quite keep at bay these days. Only last week he’d been an inquisitive, curly-headed little tyke, pulling himself up on the nose of Magog and prattling some meaninglessly delightful baby gibberish at her all the while. Yesterday, he’d been the sunburnt child who marched in late for supper, his grubby little fists full of crumpled wildflowers picked ‘just for you, Mummy.’ How impossible it was that he should be old enough now to leave them all for an education at Queen’s! “Aside from the uncustomary choice to socialize rather than eat, I can’t say as I see anything worthy of remark occurring.”</p>
<p>Eyes twinkling, Gilbert smiled. “Look again and tell me you don’t sniff a whiff o’ suspicious, as my landlady in the Redmond days used to say.”</p>
<p>Anne re-looked accordingly and, as a result, received the full effect of the little tableau when the crowd of Sunday-best skirts and trousers parted enough to reveal the person to whom her son was speaking so animatedly: a sparkly-eyed, pink-cheeked, irresistibly-dimpling Faith Meredith. (Who, it must regretfully be noted, appeared so engrossed in whatever spirited tale she was being regaled with that her plate’s precarious tilt impressed her not and she afterward swore quite sincerely that she had nothing to do with the preserved plum that rolled mysteriously into the milling throng and very nearly felled a wrathful Elder Clow when it came to rest just under his boot heel.) At once, the urge to turn to Gilbert, to inquire sharply as to just <em>what</em> he believed they were witnessing rose up like a squall on a clear summer day, but some instinct deep within held firm and bade her keep still and watch.</p>
<p>“They slipped in a little ways back,” the doctor said in a low voice, his tone colored by a speculative humor the maternal quadrant of her heart stubbornly rebelled against. “And though I hesitate to soothsay, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that I’ve accidentally glimpsed the other side of at least one upcoming bend in life’s road.”</p>
<p>Watching the dialoguers carry on, cheerfully unconscious of outside eyes, Anne found to her dismay that there was no sensible alternative but to agree with him. Though neither child—for children they were; on that point at least, she remained adamant—betrayed any outward signs of succumbing to any age-old, incurable maladies of the heart, certain it was that they both seemed unusually absorbed in the conversation. Listening with an attention bordering on rapt and interjecting the occasional remark or hearty laugh, the eldest daughter of the manse was no livelier than usual, yet Anne fancied she saw a peculiar new spark gleaming out of the piquant little face.</p>
<p> And as for Jem…well, Anne reflected ruefully, a pang of bittersweet nostalgia washing over her as she took in her son’s satisfied smile every time a twist in his story drew a laugh from the wild-rose maiden beside him, perhaps it was just as well Jerry would be the only Meredith dwelling at Ingleside for the duration of the minister’s honeymoon. Hosting the entire manse clan appeared to promise many hitherto unforeseen pitfalls.</p>
<p>“Time will tell,” she said at last, her lips curving upward in spite of herself when Di arrived on the scene and was welcomed at once into the conclave, followed next by Jerry, then Walter, then Carl, Una, and Mary Vance, one after the other in quick succession. “I suppose, as Susan’s always saying, we must simply keep a weather eye open and trust to Providence, mustn’t we?”</p>
<p>Gilbert’s hand settled warmly under her elbow, the gesture comforting and steadying as the first time he ever attempted it back in the Avonlea days, but his reply was interrupted by Susan herself who—bearing a grim expression as well as a small Blythe by each hand—emerged from the crowd with an air of resignation that suggested any number of dire scenarios.</p>
<p>“Begging your pardon Mrs. Doctor dear,” she said with discreet stateliness, her composure quite unruffled by the large, garishly-checkered apron she now wore over her best gray wool, “but I’m afraid some of us are going to need an express ride back home, send-off or no send-off.”</p>
<p>“Why, whatever’s the matter, Susan?” Anne inquired, alarm filtering through her as she observed Rilla’s abnormally somber countenance and the marked pallor in Shirley’s freckled cheeks.</p>
<p>“Sweets,” said Gilbert, divining the truth at once though whether it was through doctor’s training, paternal clairvoyance, or some combination of the two, Anne could not tell. “Or, rather too many of them. I’ll bring the buggy round.”</p>
<p>Sympathy warring with laughter as Gilbert carried off a weak and unprotesting Shirley, Anne stooped to smooth back the ruddy curls of the small mite who had given up Susan’s hand in favor of clutching ‘Mummy’ around the knees.</p>
<p>“Is that all it is?” she asked, glancing up with twinkling eyes though her voice gave no sign of her amusement. “Too many sweets?”</p>
<p>Susan nodded, her sigh a sigh of exasperation and resignation both. “It seems the young ones have been at the dessert table most of the evening. This one appears to be well enough so far, though a little green around the gills. The same, I am sorry to say, cannot be said for either Shirley or my good merino. I did what I could, but the second we reach Ingleside, I intend to scour both within an inch of their lives.”</p>
<p>Anne’s eyes fell on the big checked apron and, as she gathered the reason for its haphazardly-tied presence, she evinced a shiver of sympathy. “If you like, Susan, I can put it to soak while you change—”</p>
<p>“Nonsense, Mrs. Doctor dear,” Susan cut in authoritatively. “If anyone’s to be prematurely dragged away from a celebration and forced to scrub things, let it be Little Jem and no one else.”</p>
<p>“Jem?” said Anne in wonderment, gaze flicking back to the corner now filled with Merediths and Blythes both. Strange that there should be so many discussions of Jem tonight when he was usually so very dependable. “Why, whatever has he done?”</p>
<p>“Only put the notion into those blessed lambs minds, that’s all,” came the blunt reply. “Reminded this one that the buffet was open for the taking, through pure carelessness no doubt, but still.”</p>
<p>“Ith true, Mummy,” contributed Rilla in a very tired voice, lifting her head long enough to turn big, pathetically honeyed eyes upward. “Jem thaid we thould before Thuthan thaw. I believe he wanted to be thpiteful.”</p>
<p>“Maybe he did, my pet,” Susan agreed, delivering a soothing pat to the back of the exhausted diner, “but whatever your brother tells you from here on out, I hope next time you’ll have sense enough to remember that less is more and bonbons are not to be trifled with.”</p>
<p>“There will be no nextht time,” Rilla proclaimed with all the world-weary gravity of a queen issuing a solemn edict to her beleaguered people. “I am done with detherth, Thuthan. Forever.”</p>
<p>Anne smothered the beginnings of a smile that <em>would </em>insist on showing itself.</p>
<p>“We’ll see, dear,” she said, placing a hand on the warm little forehead of the aggrieved. “It may be you’ll think differently after you’ve gotten some ginger tea into you. Sometimes, when we are very disappointed or very angry, we make up our minds too quickly about things we ought to give a second chance.”</p>
<p>“Do we?” Unconvinced, the small one cast a dark glare in the direction of the confection-laden tables and shuddered. “Really <em>truly</em>, Mummy?”</p>
<p>In spite of herself, Anne felt her gaze wander in the opposite direction—back to the band of young revelers in the corner, where voices and laughter ebbed and rolled and stilled and overlapped as freely and colorfully as pebbles littering a shoreline. The confidential atmosphere from before had melted away; Jem and Faith were now absorbed in separate conversations with Jerry and Di respectively, yet some instinct in the mistress of Ingleside rose up and acknowledged the subtle sparkle contained within the occasional meeting of hazel and golden-brown eyes. Once upon a time, she remembered—in another small hamlet on another twilit evening after another joyful wedding—a different pair of friends had dandered about in the enchanted dusk and sensed the first approaching ripples of inevitable change. To be sure, it had been many moons before anything tangible came of that change, but as the embers of the great and wondrous blaze had undeniably flickered into recognition that night, it seemed foolish and perhaps even cowardly to recoil from this similar epiphany.</p>
<p><em>Same song </em>Mrs. Rachel Lynde had always liked to say, usually in tones of lugubrious satisfaction whenever any milestone event remotely evocative of another chapter in Avonlea history chanced to occur. <em>Same song, different choir.</em></p>
<p>And as Gilbert reappeared at the far edge of the crowd, eyes twinkling humorously as he beckoned, Anne felt the uncomfortable snarl of preemptive anxiety begin to lessen within her. After all, time, tide, and change waited for no man or woman, and where the mighty oak lost branches or collapsed in fierce windstorms, the pliant willow waved gracefully and stood erect come the calm. If all signs pointed to the inexorable forward-march of time, what of it? The baffling and irresistible potion that conquers old and young, rich and poor alike, cannot be denied or evaded forever, and there is futility in its resistance. The arrows of Cupid, however carelessly fired, must eventually hit their mark.</p>
<p>All the same, as she smiled across the room at a one-time wearer of broken slate pieces and rescuer of unfortunate lily-maids, a wistful blue ache curled densely around a corner of her mother’s heart and sympathy for old Mrs. Crawford who had somewhat comically bewailed the engagement of her fifty-seven year-old daughter at a recent prayer meeting (“You always think you’ll have more time, Miz Blythe!”) swelled within her.</p>
<p>“Mummy?”</p>
<p>As yet unburdened by the sober whimsy of nostalgia, Rilla tugged impatiently at her mother’s skirt and as Anne glanced down at her daughter, she sent up a silent prayer of gratitude for the gift of life’s small and fleeting miracles. Yes indeed, one did always think there would be more time.</p>
<p>“Really truly, dear,” she said, releasing the little hand clasped stickily in hers and stooping to put her arms around the last of her babies. Oh, for the simplicity of childhood troubles and easily-answered questions! “Really truly.”</p>
<p>Perhaps he wouldn’t mind if she were to call him Little Jem just <em>once </em>more.</p>
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  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. As Fortune Would Have It</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Using the aid of daisies, Faith contemplates the future and all its possibilities.</p><p>**Takes place between Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside, probably somewhere around the 1909-1910 range which, near as I can estimate, would be around the time Faith would have been old enough to attend Queen's and Jem would have most likely begun his studies at Redmond.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Late in the afternoon, not many hours before the robin’s-egg blue of the June sky began transforming into the rosier tint of sunset and the snowy masses of westernmost clouds to absorb the warmer hues of the lowering sun, the little valley of rainbows rustled with the whispers and laughter of wood-sprites.</p><p>To be sure, this particular band of revelers were very unlike any wood-sprites known to lore and would doubtless find themselves spurned by the graceful and proud creatures of fairyland, but the general effect was rather similar. Nan Blythe had suggested the game, primarily in jest as they were all far too old for such pastimes, but the idea had caught like wildfire and, with the exception of shy Una who blushed fiercely upon being reminded of the object and rules and politely but firmly declined to participate, the young ladies of Rainbow Valley had passed a pleasant afternoon plucking daisy petals and screaming with merriment over the results. Only Di and Faith remained now, Nan having been summoned to Ingleside for a dress fitting while Una had retired to help Rosemary and Aunt Martha prepare for the arrival of a visiting clergyman and his family and Mary Vance had been all but carted away by Miss Cornelia, but still the rhymes and commentary flew.</p><p>
  <em>He loves me, he don’t</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He’ll have me, he won’t</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He would, if he could</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But he can’t, so he don’t</em>
</p><p>“Ugh! ‘He <em>don’t</em>.’” Finishing the chant and sighing dramatically, Di tossed away the petal-less blossom in her hand with a comical but resigned air. “Well, it isn’t as if I <em>believed </em>George Hopewell had any intentions of inviting me to any Charlottetown socials this autumn—especially not after Ken went to such pains to convince him I had no interest in him—but it would’ve been nice to dream all the same.”</p><p>“Oh, nonsense,” Faith scoffed contemptuously, flinging the fuzzy yellow head of a dandelion at her half-jesting, half-sorrowful companion who sat among the Rainbow Valley grasses looking for all the world like one of those languishing, genteel maidens awaiting a knight’s rescue that so deeply fascinated the artists of yore. “Diana Blythe, I’m surprised at you! Even Rilla doesn’t believe in daisy fortunes anymore. And you an aspiring schoolmarm!”</p><p>Di laughed, flinging the golden flower right back. “Insult away, but ‘there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy’ Miss Faith, and <em>I’m </em>not taking any chances! Aunt Kitty MacGregor always swore by daisies when it came to predicting love, and I’ve never been quite comfortable contradicting what she says ever since the day she told Walter the word he wanted was <em>inviolate, </em>and it turned out he’d been needing a rhyme for a sonnet he was writing—for three days! Now you know, she couldn’t possibly have suspected that when no one but Walter did, and I can’t really imagine Aunt Kitty using words like <em>inviolate. </em>Maybe it’s all coincidence, but then again maybe it’s not.”</p><p>Faith scoffed again but let the matter drop, and it must be confessed that when Di at last took her reluctant leave, recalled to Ingleside by a breathless Rilla for yet another imperative gown-fitting, the daughter of the manse found her eye returning with alarming curiosity to the milk-white patch of blooms. After all, they were cheery little things, and it <em>had </em>been fun making-believe the secrets of one’s future could be unraveled by picking one flower to pieces. No fellow Queen’s scholars were around now to jeer at her; where was the harm if she tried it just on her own?</p><p>Newly resolved, she leaned over and plucked the tallest daisy in sight. Twirling the slim green stalk between her fingers for a moment, she at last breathed out a sigh.</p><p>“He loves me,” she murmured skeptically, the first petal raining onto her lap, “he don’t. He’ll have me, he won’t.” A second, third, and fourth petal followed the first, each fluttering down to litter the gingham folds of her skirt like oblong snowflakes on an early-morning sea. “He would, if he could…but he can’t, so he don’t.”</p><p>One by one, the silken pieces fell, until at last, there was but one left.</p><p>“He can’t,” she muttered, laughing in spite of herself. Goodbye Perry Reese, and good riddance. A loud, rather obtuse member of the dark-haired portion of the Reese clan, he’d been dogging her every footstep in the Glen as of late, and on Sunday Faith had given up all pretense of politeness and rather bluntly reminded him that patience was most assuredly <em>not</em> the virtue whose name she bore. Perry had been quite indignant over the whole thing, and Faith felt that here, at least, the flower spoke truth.</p><p>A second daisy, this time dedicated to one Edward H. Champlain, the ruggedly handsome but exceptionally monotonous football hero who was a bit too fond of saying things like <em>I say, </em>and <em>dash it all </em>in an affected accent for Faith’s taste, and she had her second pronouncement: <em>he don’t. </em></p><p>Just as well, Faith reasoned, shuddering at the thought of listening to ‘Eddie darling’ as he was affectionately known behind his august back, prattling on about incompetent halfbacks until the end of her days. He was sure to go into banking by the time he graduated college; everyone said so, and Faith had no doubt but that he would be an enormous success in that arena—an enormous, splendid, endlessly dull success, who would very likely compliment hostesses on their porcelain knickknacks and fancywork collections in an attempt to seem knowledgeable while wondering all the while whether or not there would be roast beef or chicken on the table. She had, of course, only a very hazy idea what sort of hero she most admired, having always leaned rather more toward dashing knights-errant whose deeds provided their recommendations than toward lovelorn princes who wooed through shy eloquence and longing glances, but she felt certain that Eddie was neither of these. With any luck, future love interests would at least be men of <em>action</em>, not affectation. And speaking of men of action…</p><p>Grinning impishly, Faith seized hold of her third daisy—a large, audacious, unmissable bloom—and christened it <em>Kenneth Ford. </em>On his last visit to Ingleside, that charming young personage had electrified most of the assembled company by casually declaring over the supper table that he was ‘really going to have to make up his mind one day whose shrine he intended to worship at for the rest of eternity—Faith’s or Di’s.’ Faith and Di had respectively laughed and mocked, but as Ken had kept the joke up, seemingly deriving some inexplicable fun out of the glances it caused a good many of the others to exchange, it had developed into something of a nuisance. Di, as aforementioned, had been cost all apparent chances at garnering the attention of the illustrious George Hopewell, Mary Vance pursued the subject with dogged persistence regardless of small matters like delicacy and consideration, and even Mrs. Elliott had given Faith a sharp glance after mentioning she’d heard Mr. Ford was thinking of taking the family on a summer trip to Ireland.</p><p><em>Very well then</em>, Faith thought. If they were so convinced of the potential of that angle, she would give it a chance. A foolish, child’s chance perhaps, but a chance nonetheless.</p><p>
  <em>He loves me, he don’t. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He’ll have me, he won’t. </em>
</p><p>So intent was she on stripping petal after petal from the blossom, it came as something of a shock to Faith when a throat cleared itself behind her and she whipped her head around to find a bemused-looking fisherman standing there, cane-pole in hand and a suspicious twinkle in his eyes.</p><p>“Jem Blythe!” she scolded, cheeks flushing as it struck her like a thunderclap how ridiculous she must look, sprawled out along the ferny brook, whispering to flowers like some fanciful child of four. “One of these days you’re going to creep up and frighten me right into a dead faint, and if I happen to live through it, you can be sure I’ll let the entire Glen know it was all your fault.”</p><p>Chuckling unrepentantly, Jem hoisted over his shoulder the pole he’d temporarily balanced against the Tree Lovers, and came to join her on the steep bank.</p><p>“Somehow I never took you for the fainting sort, Faith. Of course,” he added, casting a quick wink at her as he carefully lifted the lid off the bait can he was seldom seen without in the summer, “I never took you for the love-me-loves-me-not sort either, so maybe that doesn’t count for much. Aren’t you a few years past this?”</p><p>Wrinkling her nose at him, Faith nonetheless helped him untangle the line so he could get hold of the hook. Habit, of course. Just last week Father had preached a sermon on the importance of loving one’s neighbor and offering help whenever the opportunity arose; naturally, she was only following instructions.</p><p>“For your information, Master Blythe, it’s slightly more complicated than just <em>he loves me, he loves me not,</em>” she remarked after the successful completion of the task, dusting her hands off briskly. “There’s a rhyme involved, and according to Di and Aunty Kitty MacGregor, the process is supposed to be very accurate.”</p><p>Jem laughed, the sound reverberating through the hollow with almost eerie persistence as he extracted a squirming, unfortunate victim from its prison of tin and earth and prepared it for the sacrifice. “Oh, I see. You didn’t name me, did you?”</p><p>“What?” scoffed Faith, though a good deal of the crimson that had just begun to ebb away re-flooded her cheeks in an unnerving if not altogether unpleasant fashion. “Of course I didn’t; don’t be ridiculous. This one’s for Kenneth Ford.”</p><p>“Ken?” Though he never looked up from his repulsive executioner’s task, Jem’s eyebrows rose again. “That’s a new one. Weren’t there any Queen’s fellows you could name instead?”</p><p>Faith gave a derisive snort. “Plenty, but I’d only just finished with Eddie Champlain when the idea struck. It seemed riskier, so I tried it.”</p><p>“And?” Jem prompted lazily, tossing his line into the water with a loud plop.</p><p>Exhibiting the mangled flower beneath his nose, Faith removed the final three petals in quick succession. “If he could, but he can’t, so he don’t.”</p><p>Jem eyed her dubiously. “He don’t what?”</p><p>“Love me.” Discarding the empty yellow center, Faith laughed. “There, now! That makes three correct verdicts in a row. Maybe Di’s right; there <em>is </em>something in this daisy business after all.”</p><p>“Maybe.” Mouth puckering suddenly, Jem at last tore his gaze from the placid depths of the pool and lobbed her an easy grin. “Say, why don’t you run a real test? Name the next one Bertie Shakespeare and see what happens.”</p><p>“Bertie <em>Shakespeare</em>?” repeated Faith, undecided whether to laugh or take offense. “You don’t think I need a daisy to settle <em>that </em>matter for me, do you?”</p><p>Jem’s grin, habitually wide and genial, now took on a mischievous spark. “Oh, come on,” he said in the careless and goading tone that was rumored to be the reason Rod Warren had once been caught trying to scale the schoolhouse roof. “You’re not afraid of what one little flower might predict, are you?”</p><p>Afraid?<em> Well. </em>Despite instinctual misgivings (she had, to be strictly truthful, quite as deep and consuming a horror of ending up a Mrs. Bertie Shakespeare Drew as she had of becoming a Mrs. E.H. Champlain), Faith aimed a steely stare at the darer and snatched up a fourth blossom.</p><p>“Ha!” she announced at length, holding the barren sphere aloft in triumph. “He <em>won’t. </em>So there.”</p><p>Jem laughed, insisting somewhat predictably that once was hardly an indicator of anything more than luck so Faith, filled with the intoxicating wine of victory, pulled up another hapless plant. Fate appeared to be with her, however, and she fairly gloated when the verdict was an equally harmless <em>he don’t. </em>This Jem accepted with habitual goodwill, though he did teasingly invoke the scientific law of averages and imply that to <em>truly </em>be sure of her fate, she should repeat the process until she received at least two of the same result. Faith, un-offended but determined not to show it, retorted airily that she guessed two non-romantic answers to a question she felt no compunction toward were more than enough, and the cheerful jibes flew back and forth for some time before Jem remembered the original purpose of his trip had included the gathering of a bouquet of the best velvety little June violets for his mother and called a truce so he could go in search of the best patches.</p><p>“Try not to get into any trouble until I get back” was the parting volley he cast over his shoulder as he strode off across the green slopes and disappeared into the lushest of the thickets. Faith, left alone again with only the gurgle of the brook and the gently waving flora, rolled her eyes in good-natured scorn. <em>Trouble</em> indeed. As if Jem Blythe had any right to opine on her doings! Why, to do that, he’d have to be…</p><p>Her eye fell just then, perhaps unluckily, perhaps not, on a daisy—a symmetrical, full-leafed daisy with a pert, upturned sort of face that seemed almost to challenge her, and on a whim, she stooped and gleaned it from amongst its patch of snowy brethren. Movements rapid and deliberate, she detached each ridged, gleaming little petal from its lumpy yellow casing, fingers tugging the elongated white ovals free with crisp, resolute motions until at last, only one remained: the thirteenth. And, staring at it somewhat blankly, the final pronouncement buzzing around her mind like a wayward honeybee, an odd, fluttering sensation took possession of Faith. To be sure, she had said this last set of verses with a good deal of haste and haphazard imprecision, sometimes forgetting each line belonged to a separate petal, sometimes remembering. Probably she had made a mistake in counting, and oughtn’t she to do it again—just once more? Just to be absolutely certain?</p><p>Feeling very much as if a trick had been suddenly enacted upon her, Faith stooped to gather a sixth daisy. Hands atremble and heartbeat not quite so steady as before, she proceeded to strip the petals with grim purpose, this time reciting the lines meticulously as an amateur enchantress performing some crucial incantation for the first time. But just as before with the Bertie Shakespeare proxy, fate again stepped in and provided a duplicate result—only this time, the intervention seemed determined to play her false and she was left staring transfixed at the bereft little oracle in her hand.</p><p>
  <em>He loves me.</em>
</p><p>A little vexed and more than a little frightened, she feverishly tore up another bloom, then another, then another, all with unnerving outcomes.</p><p> “Well?” Jem’s voice spoke almost in her ear and Faith, starting so that she dropped the empty floweret as swiftly as though it were on fire, thought resentfully that she had probably better begin insisting he tie a bell around his neck. “What’s it say?”</p><p>Feigning a calmness not felt in a single particle of her being, Faith greeted him with a shrug. “‘He’ll have me.’ But truly, what does a daisy know?”</p><p>“Not one thing,” said Jem with the serene assurance of one who is far enough beyond the issue to be infected by its worries. “Mrs. Bertie Shakespeare Drew.”</p><p>Despite the undeniable insult leveled at her, Faith burst out laughing.</p><p>“For your information,” she informed him with incautious candor, “that flower did <em>not </em>belong to him.”</p><p>Jem’s brows lifted. “Oh? And whom <em>did </em>it belong to?”</p><p>“It...I…” All at once realizing her mistake, Faith closed her mouth with an audible click and found to her dismay that she was blushing—she, who never blushed! “Never you mind,” she floundered at last, lifting her chin in defiance though her cheeks <em>would </em>keep burning as fiercely as though she were sitting too close to the hearth on a winter’s day and she was conscious of a dreadful suspicion that she was now as rosy-skinned as a strawberry. “You’d only laugh at me if I told you, and I don’t think I’d like that very much.”</p><p>“Aw, come on, Faith.” Donning his solemnest expression, Jem drew two quick, neatly intersecting lines on his chest. “Cross my heart—I won’t make fun.”</p><p>No, reflected Faith with some ruefulness, likely he wouldn’t. Jem’s word was good as gold, and she had always known him to be a very sympathetic sort of listener. But wild horses could not have dragged this truth out of her, not now and most certainly not when this was her only audience; if some malevolent fairy had materialized suddenly and forced her to decide between baring the recent foolishness of her soul to Jem Blythe or death, Faith firmly believed she would choose the latter without hesitation.</p><p>After all, despite any number of sermons preached by very wonderful fathers on the dangers of pride, there were some things that simply could not be endured.</p><p>“Sorry,” she replied shortly, “but no.”</p><p>Nose set pointedly aloft, she struck out for the well-trodden little footpath that wound through and over the bucolic landscape and began a march homeward, determined to present at least some semblance of a stiff-starched exterior. But scarcely a moment had passed before the gentle swishing of grass blades rustled behind her, and she understood with no small tinge of annoyance that the would-be fisherman apparently intended to abandon his quest in favor of accompanying her home. <em>Just as though, </em>thought Faith with an indignation that somehow rang hollow, <em>I were incapable of finding my own way!</em></p><p>“Jem,” she said in a tone of great and ostentatious exasperation, marveling inwardly at the peculiar web of sensations welling up within her.</p><p>Ever since he had begun studying for the entrance exams and had ceased spending hours upon hours in Rainbow Valley along with the rest of them, she’d felt a queer, indefinable sense of loss. Having him here beside her, ambling along and conversing with her as easily as though it were a year ago, was a disconcerting mixture of familiar comradeship and a new, but not altogether unpleasant shyness that crept through her as invisibly and irrevocably as the little tendrils of ivy that grew on some of the headstones in the graveyard. <em>Jem Blythe’s always been handsome</em> one of the girls—Sissy Flagg, Faith believed—had whispered last prayer meeting when some of the boys were gathered around helping set up for the upcoming social. <em>If only he’d wake up and see it. It’s always fishing and plants and battles and school with him now. Or maybe he’s just too stuck-up now to like girls who haven’t been to Queen’s. </em></p><p>Just as if, Faith thought, dimpling in spite of herself and resolutely ignoring the cloying heat that flashed across the back of her neck at the first part of that recollection, Jem’s disinterest in girls like Sissy Flagg would ever have anything to do with <em>that</em>! He was the least likely boy in the world to suddenly turn snob—he simply liked who he liked, and though she couldn’t be certain how he felt about the young belles of Charlottetown, she was enormously confident that his avoidance of Sissy and her ilk had less to do with some newborn contempt for Glen life and more to do with an apparently all-consuming interest in studies and history that left no room for anyone not already inducted into the mysterious world of higher learning.</p><p>“Faith?”</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>Startled out of her accidental reverie, she blinked quickly at her companion, who chuckled.</p><p>“You seemed like you were going to say something,” he explained.</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>Somewhat taken aback by the warmth in the steady hazel eyes fixed upon her, Faith fastened her gaze on a distant knoll that rose before her with a kind of tranquil, saving grace. But alas! Lovely though it was, inspiration sprung not from the verdant slopes of the valley, and she was once again forced to rely on the wits that seemed bent on betraying her just now.</p><p>“No,” she finished cautiously at last. “I wasn’t going to say anything in particular.”</p><p>The friendly smile widened. “You just wanted to scold?”</p><p>In spite of herself, Faith had to smile back. “Maybe,” she said. “I’m not an infant, you know. I <em>can</em> walk home by myself.”</p><p>“Sure you can,” agreed Jem easily, the cane-pole on his shoulder swinging round with suspicious suddenty to poke through the clump of golden-brown curls bouncing near him. “But nobody ever said you <em>had</em> to.”  </p><p>“That’s true,” Faith replied with another recurrence of that curious little flutter. Though loath to agree with Sissy Flagg in anything, she was disconcertingly conscious of the truth in the other girl’s words. Jem <em>had </em>always been rather handsome—or at any rate, for as long as Faith had known him, he had—but how tall he’d gotten of late! And how tanned and strong! It was almost as if she were walking next to some fascinating stranger, yet the stranger kept behaving like an old friend. “But what about fishing?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” returned the stranger-friend quite unconcernedly. “What <em>about </em>fishing?”</p><p> “I mean, don’t you already have plans?” she pressed, motioning vaguely in the direction of the brook. “Aren’t you busy?”</p><p>“No.” He shot her a lopsided grin. “I’ve been reading one of Dad’s books on Hippocrates, and Susan said I’d strained my eyes enough for one day and threw me outside. I was just wasting time until supper. You trying to get rid of me or something?”</p><p>“Of course not!” Blushing harder than ever and despising herself for it—really, she was as bad as those silly, simpering girls who spent most of their time whispering about who they hoped would ask to walk them home even though they couldn’t scare up the courage to even <em>speak</em> to one of those boys—Faith affected interest in the small smudge of green that streaked the side of one slim finger. “I’m just asking, that’s all.”</p><p> “Oh.”</p><p>The tone of this response was so splendidly bland that Faith could not refrain from a furtive glance in her companion’s direction, but as Jem was now whistling with tuneless abandon, the action offered little in the way of information. Cheerful he seemed indeed, but as Jem had never been a melancholy sort, this indicated almost nothing.  Except perhaps, Faith thought with a sudden inspiration, that he was enjoying himself a good deal more than he’d done last summer when the looming shadow of forward-marching time had arisen to threaten the golden world of childhood with inevitable change.</p><p>“Were you glad to be back home?” she asked presently as they passed into a small glade she rarely visited since its location was so removed from the usual gathering place. “When you first went to Charlottetown, I mean.”</p><p>Jem’s whistle died a less-than sonorous death beneath a hearty laugh. “<em>Very</em> glad. Don’t ever let on that I told you this, but I was regularly homesick the whole first month.”</p><p>“<em>You</em>?” gasped Faith with more energy than tact. “Homesick? Why, you told us just this past Christmas you were so busy having the time of your life that first autumn that you forgot all about the holidays!”</p><p>Jem grinned again, conspiratorially this time. “So I was, by then. It was just right there in the beginning weeks I wanted to give up and come crawling back to the Glen and all of you. Honest, once it got so bad I even started packing.”</p><p>“What changed?” Faith inquired, wondering privately whether or not there were any special significance to being lumped into someone’s very broad and generalized <em>all of</em> <em>you</em>.</p><p>He shrugged. “At first, I guess I just couldn’t bear the thought of failing. Knew if I came back with my tail tucked between my legs I’d be ashamed of myself forever. Then I suppose I just got used to it. My second night there, I stayed up reading ‘til dawn and no one ever knew it but me. And say, Faith—don’t tell anyone this either, but it’s great fun being able to go where you want when you want. Why, not a week before school let out, some of the fellows and I got back late from a baseball game in town, and the boardinghouse was locked up tight so we had climb in a second-story window. We thought sure we’d catch it from Mrs. Gorman at breakfast next morning—she’s a nice old lady, only she thinks it’s her sacred duty to bring up everyone under the age of thirty—but she never even knew we’d been away.”</p><p>Faith laughed along with him, interjecting questions here and there as he began regaling her with the unabridged stories of those exploits apparently deemed unfit for parental or more gossipy ears, and by the time they resumed their walk enough to reach the thick clump of fir trees that separated the sylvan world of Rainbow Valley from the much-trafficked and rather prosaic Glen Road, her earlier unease had faded. There was no sense at all in being nervous around Jem—none whatsoever. No matter what silly Glen girls or flowers had to say, he was an excellent friend and it was lovely to have him around once more.</p><p>“My, but I’m going to be late for supper,” she remarked as they emerged into the glorious blaze of a newborn sunset. “You too, I imagine.”</p><p>“No, not until Susan sends Rilla or Shirley to ring the gong,” answered Jem comfortably, propping one shoulder against a tree. “Why don’t you just come eat with us? We can telephone the manse where you are, and that way you don’t get a scolding.”</p><p>The temptation to accept was enormous, but Faith shook her head regretfully. “I’d love to, but we’re expecting a minister and his family tonight. They’ve a son and daughter the same ages as Jerry and I, and since Jerry’s off visiting in Maywater, I’ve been elected to play hostess. You know how Una gets around outsiders, and Carl isn’t allowed to entertain by himself anymore ever since he scared the Reverend Hawthorne’s daughters trying to explain the lives of caterpillars to them.”</p><p>Jem laughed. “All right, then. See you tomorrow?”</p><p>“Hopefully,” Faith sighed, thinking with gloom of her no doubt waiting guests.</p><p>“Why hopefully?” he inquired, frowning. “You expecting to be taken captive or something?”</p><p>She made a face. “Not exactly. But she’s awfully pokey, and he thinks I’m pretty. It’s hard to ditch them sometimes.”</p><p>Jem snorted, perhaps less courteously than he might have done if Faith had not added that last detail. “Well, best of luck, then. Oh, and wait!”</p><p>Faith halted in place, pivoting at the tug on her sleeve. “What?” she said, confused.</p><p>Smiling engagingly, Jem produced small white flower from somewhere behind his back and held it out with all the gallantry of Drake sacrificing his cape for a queen. “For you.”</p><p>“Me?” Confused into speechlessness once more, Faith could only stare. “Why?” she managed after what felt like eternity, swallowing hard in an attempt to banish the sudden dryness in her throat.</p><p>The reply was prefaced by a slow, maddeningly mischievous wink. “Just in case this minister’s son turns out to be more interesting than you remember.”</p><p>“Oh, <em>honestly.</em>”</p><p>About-facing on one heel, Faith flounced off in high dudgeon from him and his irritating chuckles, wondering disgustedly as she did so why boys had to poke fun at <em>everything, </em>and why on earth they seemed only to worsen with age. But before she could make more than five good strides through the dew-slickened grass, a needling stab near her scalp followed by a sharp yank in her hair drove all other thoughts from her head.</p><p>“Your hook! My hair!” she screeched somewhat indistinctly, struggling against the invisible line that held her fast while its astounded and apologetic owner made valiant efforts to free her. “Out! Get it out, <em>please, </em>it hurts!”</p><p>“I am! I am, all right? Hold still; it’s really caught.”</p><p>Working with quick and apologetic hands, Jem untangled the offending hook from its prison of curls while Faith stood woodenly with clenched fists and gritted teeth, thinking things not lawful to be uttered about fishermen and their abominable carelessness. A beelike stinging near the edge of her right temple told her the object had found its mark with merciless accuracy, and she was convinced she could feel the tiniest trickle of gore beginning to run down her face.</p><p>“Is it out?” she asked after a minute or so, once the surgeon in charge of the delicate operation had finally stepped back with an air of relief.</p><p>“Yes,” Jem mumbled, the teasing tone of moments before replaced by a properly chastened attitude. “Gee, I’m sorry, Faith. I should have <em>my </em>head examined for not paying any attention to where the pole was going. Are you all right? Did it cut you anywhere, you think?”</p><p>Faith hesitated, her indecision enough of a confirmation for him to start insisting she allow him to see. So, working gingerly, she scraped back a clump of curls and allowed him to lean in and inspect the damage near her hairline. It was a tricky business, the tiny scratch being located in such close proximity to the wispier gold strands around her forehead and the light somewhat reduced by the dense copse of firs, but Jem managed with admirable proficiency—all the more admirable, it must be confessed, because his habitually steely nerves felt not entirely steady just then and it required rather a lot of concentration to make them appear as such.</p><p>“Well,” he announced at length, in excellent but unconscious imitation of his father’s hearty bedside manner. “The good news is, you don’t need stitches.”</p><p>“And the bad news?” Faith asked lightly, quelling with difficulty the swarm of mysterious butterflies that seemed to be occupying her chest. There had been a few inexplicably nerve-wracking seconds where Jem’s nose was inches from the side of her face and his fingers traced delicate, ticklish lines all around the perimeter of her wound, and it seemed she had yet to recover.</p><p>Jem’s voice took on a wry note. “All I’ve got on me bandage-wise right now is an old kerchief. I’ll have to clean it in the brook before I can use it.”</p><p>Nodding dumbly, Faith allowed him to take her arm and guide her back over to the silvery little stream, wondering in vague detachment all the while if it were possible the hook had somehow lodged itself in her brain and caused everything to cease its proper function. Because surely, the foolish contentment she felt listening to the officious prattle of the boy tending her wound—the wound he’d inflicted, no less!—had a touch of lunacy about it. She <em>ought</em>, she mused idly, biting her lip to keep from laughing when he stepped back to examine his makeshift bandage and scowled, to be scorchingly angry with him. She ought to scold like mad, or at the very least let him know she intended to carry a grudge for a few days.</p><p>Only…it felt so difficult. Even gathering up a scowl seemed an almost impossible feat, and when he wound everything up by presenting her with a sheepish smile and a half-blown wild rose he’d plucked from goodness-knew-where, it became fully so.</p><p>“There you are,” he said. “All done, best I can do. If you like, you can stab me with the thorns?”</p><p>“No, but thank you,” she told him, smiling back widely. “This is lovely. It’s too bad there’s not another. Then I could give one to you for your doctor’s fee.”</p><p>Jem laughed, re-shouldering his pole—with more caution this time.</p><p>“No need,” he said. “I skewered you to begin with, so the doctor bit just makes us square. Besides, there’ll always be roses. You can give me one some other time. If you want, that is.”</p><p>In spite of both his sixteen years and the innocence of the remark, Jem stumbled a little over the last words and became quite silent in self-disgust. Had the fading sunlight been less crimson or Faith more attuned to the tacit language of reticent youths, she might have noticed that her unofficial escort wore all the telltale signs of a blush and wondered at it. But as it fell out, Faith was far too busy cultivating her own façade of nonchalance to concern herself with seeing past that of anyone else, and the phenomenon went undiscovered until a bittersweet evening many years later, when another rose would call the incident to mind and set the doctor’s son and the minister’s daughter laughing amidst the Great Shadow that darkened the world.</p><p>For now, though, the page of life remained as yet unturned, and Faith broke into a merry chuckle when her gaze lighted upon a straggling group of white and yellow blooms.</p><p>“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,” she said, eyes crinkling with humor. “Who among us can tell the future?”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*The poem used here is "Fortune-telling by Daisy Petals" from The Big Book Of Nursery Rhymes and is a variation of the Loves Me, Loves Me Not game. The publishing date on the book I was introduced to back in college is 1920, but one of my great-great aunts who was born around the 1898-1900 range had a very similar rhyme written like a joke on some papers from when she was younger, so I think it's safe to assume some version of this poem has been floating around the world for some time. </p><p>*This was the first LMM fic I tried (which is why it's tonally a little shakier than the first, in my opinion), but it was really fun to write, so I decided to post anyway. The idea for this came after rereading Rilla of Ingleside, because I've always loved the Jem/Faith rose story. Neither of those two ever seemed as sentimental as some of the other Blythes/Merediths, so it seemed really significant to me that they'd do something that unapologetically romantic and I wanted to expand on that :] Also, I like to think that since we do know Faith "liked Jem's looks ESPECIALLY" before even meeting him but don't know how Jem felt until they were both in college and their names were being linked, that this is around the point where the interest in Faith really got started for him. </p><p>*I'm putting the finishing touches on three more LM Montgomery themed fics right now (they're all about the same level of doneness), so the next update will either be another Faith/Jem centric one set during Rainbow Valley, an Ilse/Perry centric one set during Emily of New Moon, or a very rambling conversational one between Faith and Nan after Jem and Jerry leave for the war. I don't know how long it will take me, but here's hoping it's not very long, and that everyone reading this has been having a wonderful set of holidays! Happy New Year, and thanks for reading/commenting :]</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I’ve been reading L.M. Montgomery almost ever since I *could* read, and I’ve never outgrown my love for her books. Her prose-poetry descriptions always amaze me, and since I had a lot of time on my hands during the pandemic, I (naturally) reread all my Anne and Emily and Story Girl books. That got me thinking about how I haven’t challenged myself on writing STYLE in a good long bit, and since it wasn’t like I had the excuse of "no time to write," I figured I’d practice my descriptions while writing about some of the canonical background relationships probably no one but myself gives any thought to. (I’m a SUCKER for Faith and Jem, and it’s an absolute TRAGEDY to me that Ilse and Perry’s story takes place entirely in the background.) The title of this collection is one of my favorite quotes from The Story Girl: "I think there are two kinds of true things...things that ARE, and true things that ARE NOT, but MIGHT be." That, in my opinion, is the very essence of fanfiction, so I kind of had to make use of it.</p>
<p>The pieces will most likely be around the same size or a little longer than regular LM Montgomery chapter length and I probably won’t update this with any regularity whatsoever, but we’ll see. It’s so incredibly difficult imitating her style, but it’s also SO MUCH FUN. And, I mean…it gives me an excuse to reread some of my favorite books ever, and I've already got three other tales in the works, so yeah. :]</p>
<p>If you’re actually reading this…I’m honestly a little shocked, I absolutely thank you for taking the time to do so, and please, please, please say hello! (Also: hope you’re staying safe, and that you have a good weekend!) Kindred spirits are doggone SCARCE these days, and it brings me great joy every time I meet someone who loves Anne and co. My Tumblr is @alwaysspeakshermind and though I’m not on it with any kind of consistency, I always answer messages/asks.</p>
<p>Happy Friday, and may no three o'clock feelings cloud your soul &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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